Having spent the holiday season alone due to social distancing, my Seder-for-one gave me time to reflect on the world situation as I read from my Haggadah. I splashed the drops of wine from my goblet and recited the plagues that the lord cast upon my ancestor’s enslavers and I could not help but notice that this year those words sounded very much like what was going on all around me.
Locusts gave it away as they are invading North Africa. Leprosy has been replaced by COVID-19. Extreme weather, killer hornets, etc. make me think that a higher force is trying to tell us that excessive greed and hate have stirred our creator to give us a wake-up call.
I’ve always tried to leave religion out of my public life and writings. It seems that a little over a year ago when I turned 70 I woke up to the fact that I was closer to the end of my life than the beginning and though I know not of any specific wrongs I have done to anyone, I’ve decided to do what I can to spend whatever time I have left to pave the way for the eventual day I am reunited with my maker. Thus, I am allowing religious references as a way to indicate what I am thinking.
My opinions have changed since my last column and as a direct result of that column as a reader set me straight. We know so little about this horrible disease and the politically biased way we are learning about it has given us an ongoing series of explanations that continue to change by the day as the previous information proves to be not true.
In that last column I bought into the theory that we could test our way out of this mess. Though many are still pushing that idea, I now don’t see it possibly working. We were told this may have started with a bat. We know a lion, a zebra, a house cat, and a dog have all tested positive. (How come they have enough tests to test animals and not enough for those long lines of people?) To me this means no amount of isolating and tracing contacts is going to contain this as animals can’t tell you who they’ve been in contact with. Contact with any one of them could trigger wave after wave of outbreaks.
I now agree with President Trump that going back to work is the best thing we can do as that is the fastest way herd immunity can be achieved. This will do nothing to stop the inevitable outbreaks and deaths. What it will do is keep those that survive from surviving in a world without jobs and homes and food to eat.
Those like myself, 71 with diabetes, will do the best we can to protect ourselves. So far, approximately once per month I have left the safety of my home to refill one of my prescriptions and restock my pantry. I wear a face mask and gloves and avoid contact with anyone. Even if things begin to open back up I will continue to duck and cover.
I don’t buy Trump’s claim that the stock market is going to bounce right back up. Even though quite a few of the annual reports I read last week were as strong as they have been all along many others have indicated that several large sectors of the economy will take much longer to recover if at all.
It will also take a long time for those afraid of getting the disease from participating in excesses that could jeopardize their health.
Steven Davidson writes from New Windsor. Reach him at Sdavid0419@yahoo.com.
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